Existing techniques for inspecting a fuel filter such as an aircraft fuel filter may require manual inspection by flight line personnel. A manual inspection may only provide qualitative and visual information. Further, manual inspections are susceptible to errors due to the subjectivity of the results and may not provide a scientifically quantifiable or consistent method for inspecting a fuel filter and/or deciding whether to perform costly fuel system flushing. Unnecessary fuel system flushing may lead to over-flushing and may increase the time and costs associated with fuel system maintenance.
Fuel filters may be saturated or covered with explosive or hazardous chemicals such as gasoline or jet fuel. Exposure to such hazardous chemicals may be dangerous to flight line personnel that inspects the fuel filters. It is desirable to provide a consistent method for inspecting or analyzing fuel filters while preventing harm to those performing the inspection or analysis.